About Me

Welcome! I am an assistant professor of political science at University of Massachusetts, Boston. Prior to moving to Boston, I served as a committee staffer as part of the American Political Science Association's Congressional Fellowship Program (2015-2016). While on the Hill, I worked on a diverse set of issues ranging from education and workforce development to criminal justice reform.

I completed my Ph.D. in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, at UC Berkeley. In my dissertation, "All Politics is Local: Reexamining Representation and the Electoral Connection," I examine whether members of Congress are driven more by local particularism or broader policy. I combine observational data on voter behavior, experimental evidence on constituent preferences, and an original dataset on campaign advertising to evaluate two seemingly straightforward questions: what are members doing, and how are constituents responding?

I am interested personally and professionally in the role education plays in shaping social policy outcomes. Before graduate school, I was a special education teacher at Kramer Middle School in Washington D.C. While in the Beltway, I completed a Master’s of Special Education at George Mason University. Back in Berkeley, I volunteered with Community Education Partnerships, a non-profit that offers academic support to homeless youth in the Bay Area. I have also taught courses on American government and U.S. history for the Prison University Project at San Quentin.